Uplay's still kind of annoying to me, but that may be because most games I have that using it I bought from Steam, so it's two layers. That actually may be why Origin has always seemed OK to me. It's pretty low impact because you're not logging in twice.

I dont understand the uplay hate these days. Last few games i've gotten from them have been flawless on their part. Only thing that sucks is that it is another separation of my gaming list.

It's still just yet another crappy storefront/utility/drm/login/password THING that I find incredibly irritating and doesn't add anything to my gaming experience. Valiant Hearts forces you to use Uplay and as a result I watched it on youtube.

I don't use Origin either but from what I've seen and heard they managed to "figure it out" and make it a low impact program that adds useful functionality the same way that Steam does. Uplay is just bloat.

I am still not sure what kind of game it's going to be but it looks intriguing and Feb 14, 2017 release date gives them some time to polish it up I guess.

3rd/1st person melee combat. If you've played the game on Steam called Chivalry it's essentially a graphically upgraded version of that (without the range classes). It also now has a single player campaign.

What they had playable was basically the intro section of the knight campaign, so you got the combat tutorial and fought a few not too challenging enemies. The combat is entirely stance based with 3 stances (high, left, and right) and two attack types (light and heavy). You block by simply matching the enemy stance, but heavy attacks will stagger you. Light attacks will interrupt heavy attacks, but if they get blocked you're vulnerable. You can also dodge and guard break.

All these options make the combat quite nuanced. I wound up going with an approach of poking to get the enemy to guard, then powering through their guard with heavy attacks. Others in my group relied almost entirely on guard break (one guy said it's OP), and others did more of a parry retort approach. It was incredibly rewarding, winning a fight actually felt like you'd fought better than the opponent, and hadn't simply mashed your way to victory.

This type of combat only applies to some of the enemies though. The game has a bit of a Warriors feel to it, in that there are normal fodder enemies (mash light attack to just massacre them all) and more powerful enemies where the rich combat system comes into play.

My one complaint is that you can't turn off the combat UI. The game has indicators for both you and your opponent, in the shape of a little shield. This shows you the stance of your opponent, and if it turns red they are attacking. However this really isn't needed, because you can just look at your opponent to see their stance. I really would have liked a way to optionally turn off the indicator, and make the game a bit more interesting. I suggested this to the developers, who said they'd talk about it.

I'm really excited to get to play the full thing next year. The demo was well worth the line wait, and I have high hopes for this. It's in my top 3 most anticipated games of 2017 (the other two being Steep and Bloodstained).

Still with controllers? I'm getting worried they're going to pass on them using k/m even though they said at the beginning they would.

And yea Guard Break as it stands now is OP. On the forums lot of people asking for them to tone it down. Still it's a point of sheer joy when fighting on battlements and you time it just right to push someone off.

I'm also very impressed that each class has it's own unique feel and their own set of combos to use in combat.